All - starting a new thread here. (I’ve been having a good chat with folks on another thread regarding aero bars.)
In September (9/21-22), I’ll be doing a 24-hour attempt on my track bike at the Kissena Velodrome in NYC. I’m calling this “24 Hours of Kissena!”
If anyone is local to the area, please feel free to swing by - I’m writing my own rules for this… people can ride with me, it’s kosher as long as I don’t draft.
Currently, I’m working through the aero bar setup, getting comfortable on them, and the realities of doing this outside. As some of you might recall, I did the Festive 500k in one go last December, but that was indoors on the trainer, so this is an entirely different beast!
If anyone has advice and guidance, I would truly appreciate it. Your collective advice was absolutely amazing last December for the Festive 500!
I lot of learnings during this weekend’s 8-10 hour overnight ride. Definitely learned about nutrition (e.g., reducing concentration of Pav juice), working with the crew, how to reduce breaks, how hard it will be during the overnight portion, how to balance lights’ brightness with battery capacity, etc.
I also learned that there are bats at night at the track… and received some good advice to keep food bags elevated as there can be mice (didn’t see any… but definitely saw the bats!)
(Also, that I need to figure out a technical solution to combat the track’s bumpiness - I’ve covered that in my other thread… short summary is that the impact of the track’s bumps really reduced my comfort and my speed/watts in the latter half of the test ride.)
Not 100% happy with my stats, but will post them here:
Start time: a few minutes before 9pm ET
End time: 6am
Breaks totaled ~2:06 hours including a longer-than-planned break between 4 hour “sets”, stopping to switch out hydration bladder, quick naps, etc. As I had only budgeted 45 minutes for breaks for 9 hours (one 30-minute break and short stops to pee), I need figure out how to reduce my breaks so I have more time to ride
Additional stats…
In my first two hours, I was at 16.8mph, 85 RPM, and 100w (note there is significant variability in every lap as I’m going into the wind and then have the wind at my back on each lap, and there is variation in the straights and the curves). As such, I was mostly just pacing myself with cadence, and felt fit and solid.
Then, in the second 2 hours, I was at 15.1mph, 82 cadence, and 89w. (Note this includes small breaks to pee!)
That said, after that, in the latter half of my ride (~4 hours), my stats dropped significantly… 15.3mph and then 11.4/7mph by the end. Fatigue was a huge factor here as I did the overnight ride after a full day of activities, and as I’m still getting used to doing a long distance on my track bike without coasting, etc. That said, my feeling is that the biggest factor was the bumps and their impact…. As evidenced by the fact that I’m writing this post 24 hours after I finished the overnight ride and my head still is foggy/hurts a bit.
Anyway, that’s a summary… doing a 10-12 hour daytime test ride on September 9th. Will plan to post more after that.
Any advice in advance of my second 20-24 hour ride ever would be greatly appreciated!!! : )